se gold
into the purest blue, and is filled with those heads, chaste, innocent,
and fervent, that spring beneath the brush of Raphael like the flowers
at the breath of Spring. These aerial creatures throng to contemplate
the Virgin, and their forms recall those radiances in the shape of
crowns that fill the Dantesque Paradise, making the name of Mary resound
with their praises. Our eyes and mind lose themselves in the immense
multitude of these happy spirits. "Number if you can the sands of the
sea or the stars in the sky, those that are visible and invisible, and
still believe that you have not attained the number of the angels. It
costs God nothing to multiply the most excellent things, and it is the
most beautiful of which he is most prodigal." We cannot keep our eyes
away from that sky; we gaze at it and love to dazzle and weary our eyes
with it.

On either side of the Virgin, kneel St. Sixtus and St. Barbara. Placed
also amid the clouds, but below the Madonna, they are near the sovereign
mediatrix, as mediators also between the world and the Sovereign Judge.
St. Sixtus is seen on the right in profile, his head is raised towards
the Infant Jesus, his left hand is placed devoutly on his breast while
his right is foreshortened and points towards the spectator. He wears a
white rochet tied by a girdle with golden tassels, a white amice around
his neck, a magnificent pallium woven with gold falling to his feet, and
a long chasuble embroidered with gold and lined with red enveloping his
shoulders and arms, the wide folds of which are lost amid the clouds.
His head is bare, and his white tiara, adorned with the triple crown, is
placed on the balustrade that runs horizontally across the base of the
picture. It is impossible to find a representation of pontifical
sovereignty of greater fervour, grandeur, and truth. His cranium is bald
and has only a crown of grey hair remaining. His emaciated face is full
of ardour and power: his eyes penetrate straight into the splendour of
God; and his mouth, although partially hidden by the grey beard that
covers the lower part of his face, is praying with extraordinary
fervour. His gesture, so resolute and respectful, is in itself an act of
love and charity, and his very hands, so true in drawing and so bold in
action, have their special eloquence. It seems impossible that the
divine justice will not allow itself to be swayed by such intercession.

St. Barbara is opposite St. Sixtus. H